Chapter 8: The Man Who Made One Phone Call Too Many
Garrett Lyle's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building on West Peachtree Street that had a lobby full of tasteful art and a receptionist who looked at my badge the way people look at things they have been trained not to react to.
I was not there to arrest him.
I was there because Webb had authorized a voluntary interview — a courtesy extended to subjects before things became less courteous — and because I had asked to conduct it myself.
Webb had agreed with the same look he had given me before the Mercer interview.
Back of the room.
You observe.
This time, I was the one who would be speaking.
Lyle was not what I had pictured, and I had pictured something specific.
I'd expected the full performance: expensive suit, deliberate handshake, the practiced warmth of a man who had spent decades making people feel comfortable right before he used them.
I had prepared myself for charm.
Instead, he was in his shirtsleeves.
No jacket.
Reading glasses pushed up on his head.
He looked like a man interrupted, and he had arranged the room to make sure I felt that.
"Special Agent Reeves." He didn't stand.
"I wondered how long before someone sent you."
I sat down across from him without being invited.
"Mr.
Lyle.
Thank you for agreeing to speak with us."
Callahan, to my right, had her notebook open.
"I didn't agree," he said.
"My assistant accepted on my behalf.
There's a distinction." He folded his hands on the desk.
"But I'm a cooperative person.
Ask your questions."
"You made a donation to the Reeves Foundation four years ago," I said.
"Four point two million dollars.
Through the Lyle Strategic Group Charitable Trust."
"I support several charitable organizations.
Yes."
"Did you know Everett Reeves personally?"
A pause.
Small but present.
"We were acquainted."
"How acquainted?"
"We moved in some of the same circles.
Atlanta is a large city with a surprisingly small number of rooms where the relevant conversations happen."
"Did he know the nature of your business?"
Lyle smiled.
"My business is entirely legitimate, Special Agent."
"I'm sure it is," I said.
"Did he know about the parts of it that aren't on your website?"
The smile stayed in place.
The eyes behind it didn't move.
"I think you've come here with a story already written," he said.
"I'm a little disappointed.
I expected more from Everett's daughter."
"You knew him well enough to know about his daughter."
"I know about you, yes.
He talked about you." Lyle tilted his head.
"He was proud.
Worried, too, the way fathers of daughters in dangerous professions worry.
But mostly proud."
It was a calculated thing to say.
It was meant to land somewhere soft.
I let it fall on the floor between us.
"Sergeant Mercer called you yesterday," I said.
"Forty seconds, immediately after he struck my vehicle.
What did he tell you?"
Lyle's expression didn't change.
"I receive a great many calls."
"Do you remember that one?"
"I'd have to check my records."
"We have the call log," Callahan said, without looking up from her notebook.
"Duration 00:41.
At 2:17 p.m.
yesterday.
From Mercer's personal cell to your direct line."
A beat.
"Wade is an old acquaintance," Lyle said.
"He calls occasionally."
"About what?"
"Various things."
"Did he call you twenty minutes before the stop as well?" I asked.
Lyle looked at me.
Something shifted — not much, the way a card player's finger shifts on a table when the hand goes wrong.
"I'd have to check," he said again.
"The call that morning was four minutes and twelve seconds," I said.
"From a number registered to a prepaid device purchased in Cobb County six weeks ago.
The device was used for eleven calls total.
Ten of them to Mercer.
One to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's city desk." I watched his face.
"You may want to check your records more carefully."
Lyle was quiet.
"The story Tully filed this morning," I said.
"The one about undisclosed assets and foundation irregularities.
That story required a source with specific knowledge — my direct phone number, my inheritance of the vehicle, the foundation's donor records.
That's not public information." I leaned forward slightly.
"Who gave it to him?"
Lyle picked up his reading glasses from the top of his head and set them on the desk.
He looked at them for a moment.
"I'd like to call my attorney," he said.
"You're not under arrest.
You don't need an attorney to end a voluntary conversation."
"Nevertheless."
I stood.
Callahan closed her notebook.
"Mr.
Lyle," I said.
"You built a story around a woman you expected to scream.
When she didn't scream, the story collapsed." I looked at him evenly.
"Whatever you were trying to protect by running that play yesterday — it isn't protected anymore.
Everything you did to discredit me has become evidence of why someone wanted me discredited."
He looked up from his glasses.
"The investigation I was building before yesterday?" I said.
"It's formally open now.
As of this morning."
Lyle's hand moved toward his phone.
"There's one more thing," I said.
"My father built that health center for the community on Auburn Avenue.
The people who use it every day don't know whose money is in the east wing." I picked up my bag.
"They will."
I walked to the door.
Callahan was a step behind me.
Behind us, we heard Lyle dial.
May you like
The call connected before we reached the elevator.
We heard him say three words before the doors closed: "It didn't work."
